How to give moonshine vodka taste. Concentrated essences and flavors

It has long turned from a forced occupation in order to reduce the cost of alcohol or cover its shortage into an art that requires a creative approach.

Drinks of various colors and tastes are placed on the table, using strong purified moonshine as the basis for the further implementation of the master's idea.

From what to paint over moonshine, both its visual perception and taste qualities depend. After all, you see, just taking food coloring and adding it to the alcohol base is not interesting and will not reward you with the title of craftsman. It is much more pleasant to follow the reaction of people who try a masterpiece born by the flight of your imagination.

And in order not to “messy” with various ingredients and not spoil the product on which time and money are spent, follow the well-known rules.

1. Use only food raw materials for your own safety. When using wood chips, bark, find out if the wood has been chemically treated.
2. Experiment first with a little moonshine. Sometimes, when interacting with alcohol, the dye can create a "wild" color. Therefore, it is better to accurately determine the dosage of raw materials in a small amount. For example, per litre.
3. Mix the Ingredients in glass or enamel(stainless) utensils.

Carefully. When working with glass, use only wooden spoons/spatulas for mixing. With a stainless steel spoon, you can easily break through the wall of the jar and lose the fruits of all your efforts.

1. stick formulations.
2. After insisting strain moonshine, so that the remaining particles of the coloring matter do not oversaturate it over time.
3. Tinted moonshine store in glass under a tight lid in a place inaccessible to light, otherwise it may “shed” over time.

Why is coloring needed?

Psychologists have long been studying the question of how a person perceives the taste and smell of what he takes inside. And they unanimously affirm: in food and drink not only taste is important, but also color.

Suppose you have an excellent grape moonshine. It has already settled in the glass for a month or two, remaining transparent.

But if you paint a part in a “cognac” color and invite people who do not know the trick to taste the same drink, but of a different color, then the notes of real cognac alcohol will be caught in colored alcohol!

How to paint over to correct the aroma?

Moonshine has a pungent smell. The situation is slightly corrected by high-quality purification. Be sure to go through both of these procedures so as not to be disappointed in the end result.

Even tinted, but hard and smelly moonshine will not get better. Therefore, take a high-quality alcohol base. And then - create what you want to see on your table, how to surprise your family and guests.

Burnt sugar - softening and color

Sugar to soften the taste of hard strong alcohol is added when creating vodka. He also helps moonshine. But to combine two functions, softening and coloring, can burnt sugar or, as it is also beautifully called, caramel color.

To create it, take sugar, pour it into a dry frying pan, slightly moisten and bring to the desired color. In this way, for sure, in childhood, many made sweets.

Add burnt sugar to moonshine. Caramel perfectly colors "cognac" and eliminates the sharp smell and taste.

Reference. For a liter of homemade alcoholic distillate, you need 1 tablespoon of sugar, which has turned into caramel.

tea for three

Of course, we are not talking about pouring boiling water over a tea leaf, but about mixing tea with moonshine. For this method, only good quality tea without additives is suitable. Like the one on the pack of which elephants were painted a long time ago. Although many today, on the contrary, use tea with specific flavors such as barberry, mint, etc.

Carefully. It is not known how the "identical to natural" flavoring in alcohol will show itself. Therefore, try on a small dose, do not do a lot at once.

Add a spoonful of dry tea to a three-liter jar of distillate. And the color of the drink will depend on the exposure. Usually 3-7 days is enough. As soon as the color has reached the desired, strain the infusion through cheesecloth.

coffee moonshine

Moonshine infused with coffee beans, ground or instant coffee has a pleasant color and organoleptic properties. But gourmets say that the most delicious is on grains.

• For a grain tincture, use 30-40 roasted grains per liter of distillate. Insist from two weeks to two months.
• To use ground coffee, grind 30-50 g of coffee and pour in a liter of moonshine. Leave overnight, strain through coffee filters in the morning.
• The easiest way is to use instant coffee, but the taste of the tincture will differ, just as a natural drink differs from instant coffee. This method is more often used on unsuccessful moonshine. Take 1.5 tablespoons of powder for a three-liter jar of moonshine. Dissolve and you're done. After such tinting, the taste also improves.

Infusion on citrus peels

Our grandmothers also used this method of coloring and improving the taste of homemade strong alcohol. First, orange or lemon peels need to be dried. Then throw the peels from two fruits into a three-liter jar of moonshine and soak for a couple of weeks.

Attention. Orange peel will turn alcohol yellow, lemon peel greenish.

Coloring with nuts and partitions

Use partitions 15 walnuts per 1 liter of alcohol 45-50 ° strength. Infuse for a week, then strain.

A wonderful infusion is obtained on pine nuts. First, roast 150 g of nuts to remove the resin, then add to a liter of moonshine. Exposure time - 1 month.

Try making a coffee bean infusion by adding a handful of walnut kernels.

"Cognac" on prunes for three days

The drink imitates cognac well, it drinks well, and if you pour it into beautiful bottles, it pleases the eye.

Prepare three liters of moonshine in a jar. Add:

• 6 pieces of prunes with stones;
• a bag of black tea without flavorings;
• 10 carnations;
• a small glass of sugar;
• half a sachet of vanilla.

Cover tightly and leave for three days in a dark place. Shake daily. It's not scary if turbidity appears - it will be filtered through cotton pads.

Food colorings

This is the easiest thing to do - pour a little into a jar of alcohol, stir with a wooden spoon. If the color seems faded, add more. Unusual colors can also be made in this way, for example, by mixing red dye with blue, you get purple. Weird but fun, although not all guests will have the courage to try it.

Important. Food colorings practically do not change the taste of the product, so take moonshine for this method, purified and soft, without a strong odor.

Homemade food colorings

Most often, various vegetable raw materials are used to give moonshine color. It is important that it is not poisonous and does not give moonshine an unpleasant aftertaste. Most often, fruits and berries are used, ready-made jam with a rich color, which will add not only color, but also taste.

Over time, alcohol dyed with vegetable raw materials can “burn out”, the color will become lighter, and then disappear altogether.

This is typical, for example, of cranberries, peony, roses. But this does not happen immediately, but after about half a year, and when stored in the basement, it can last for a year or two.

Keep in mind that each product will add its own touch of taste, your moonshine will also acquire a new flavor with a color change. A little "weakening the degree" and adding honey, sugar, you can get excellent drinks that will delight women.

What color moonshine can be made?

Without exaggeration, moonshine can be any color you wish. Fortunately, food coloring comes in any color, including black. Be sure to find out before buying if this dye is suitable for alcohol.

Get blue moonshine

The blue color is considered natural for blue absinthe, Bombay gin. To get it at home, insist moonshine on unpeeled sunflower seeds, then add concentrated blueberry decoction to it. At the end, literally for 20 minutes, dip a handful of fresh yarrow leaves into the finished infusion. And strain.

Gentle blue color will give fresh flowers of cornflower or chicory.

Color alcohol yellow, red and orange

It is most common to see homemade alcohol either transparent or with a brown tint of varying intensity. However, to make it truly colorful, even without resorting to chemical dyes, is quite within the power of every distiller.

• Melissa, turmeric, celery leaves give yellow color.
• Golden - St. John's wort, walnut membranes, orange peels, bison.
• Get the red color by adding blueberries, burgundy peony petals, cumberlain (black raspberries) or blackberries. Ceiling them first. Blackcurrant jam will also give a red color.
• For bright yellow, almost orange alcohol, saffron will do. Since we have very little natural saffron and it is too expensive, Imeretian saffron (made from a special type of marigolds) will perfectly replace it. If you choose the zest of brightly colored oranges for this purpose, you will also get an orange color.

What to add to moonshine to get scarlet and green

The scarlet color will turn out if you adjust the amount of colorants for the red color. But if you need a bright color, use cream of tartar and carmine food coloring.

4 g of both substances should be taken per liter of hot water. First crush the cream of tartar, mix it with paint, fill it with water and let it boil. Cool, strain, and add enough solution to the moonshine to make it turn scarlet.

Green is obtained using blackcurrant or parsley leaves. Scroll the selected fresh raw materials through a meat grinder and fill with moonshine. After a day or two, look and try. If the result that you wanted could not be obtained, you can use a dye.

What other color of moonshine can be obtained at home?

Simple recipes that produce browns of varying intensity to almost black include the use of walnut partitions, black tea, burnt sugar, oak bark, instant coffee.

You can find information that blueberries can give black. It is unlikely that no matter how much you add, you can only achieve a very rich burgundy. Apparently, you will get black sambuca at home only using black food coloring.

Dark red, almost burgundy alcohol is obtained by insisting hibiscus on homemade distillate.

Release form: powder or liquid. Moreover, the liquid immediately dissolves in the drink, the powder must be shaken until dissolved.

The liquid preparation is measured with a syringe according to the recipe: usually 5 - 7 small divisions on a syringe (less than a cube) per 1 liter of alcohol. Dry dose - 1 tsp. per litre.

Usually the expiration date is 1.5 years. So, buying a little fresh product in reserve, you will not lose.

Reference. Bonifiers are tested for harmlessness to humans and the environment.

classified as nutritional supplements. Recommended for poisons and harmful impurities of alcohol-containing drinks: moonshine, cognac, etc. The degree when they are applied does not “sneak”, just as the color does not change.

Is it possible to prepare this harmful absorber and taste enhancer on my own? In principle, everything that we add to alcohol for purification and softening is a bonifier.

But if you want to look exactly like a purchased one, look at the composition. For example, Hlebny Dar contains glucose, fructose, lactose, tartaric acid and vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid).

Buy all the components separately and "stir up" your own bonus. Instead of tartaric acid, you can use succinic or malic, instead of lactose - whey.

Attention. Although manufacturers claim that you can drink alcohol immediately after adding a bonifier, however, white flakes may fall out in initially crystal clear alcohol, which is confirmed by user reviews.

Therefore, it is recommended to put purified alcohol in the refrigerator for several days so as not to disgrace yourself in front of the guests. If flakes (precipitation) appear, filter the drink through cotton wool, filter paper or coffee filters.

How to improve the taste of moonshine?

Components that affect the taste of alcohol can be added in the following ways:

• improvement in the taste of moonshine occurs after sprinkling crushed ingredients to the finished product ( vegetable raw materials, prepared bark and wood of trees, spices);
• add liquid ingredients in the form of a decoction, infusion;
• used to change taste essential oils, essences, plant extracts;
• liquid or dry ingredients can be added to, placed in a steamer.

Homemade or factory made bonifiers are designed to soften the taste characteristics of alcohol, eliminate or replace the fusel smell with a more acceptable one.

What can be added to moonshine:

• lemon or orange zest cut from two fruits, insist on three liters of alcohol for 2-3 weeks. Then strain the liquid, you can taste it;
• partitions of walnuts(15 fruits are calculated for 1 liter bottle of alcohol). It is recommended to insist 3-5 weeks, after which the alcohol should be carefully filtered;
• 150 g pine nuts soak in hot water for half an hour. Vegetable raw materials, after drying, must be placed in a liter container with home-made alcohol. Monthly infusion of raw materials paints the infusion in a beautiful brownish color, giving moonshine a pleasant taste and smell;
• when insisting 100 g of dried or smoked prunes on an alcoholic drink, 3 liters of delicious moonshine with a unique smoky smell and cognac color of the drink are obtained;
• sprig of mint can be combined with a few circles of fresh lemon or orange per liter of alcohol;
• beautiful shade, pleasant taste qualities are guaranteed to alcohol when insisting on dry black or green tea, hammer or soluble coffee;
• 10 peas black hot pepper soften the taste of moonshine after two weeks of infusion. Red chili also works, from which it is first recommended to remove all the seeds that give the drink bitterness;
• vanilla pod and 1-2 sticks cinnamon turn 3 liters of homemade alcohol into delicious moonshine, intended for ladies' society.

Adding to it helps to make the drink sweet sugar, glucose, honey, glycerin. However, it is necessary to comply with the measure.

What to add to a dryer?

You can give the original taste of moonshine using a steamer for flavoring (read:). A layer of dry additives in moonshine must not exceed 2 cm in height. Fruits and berries fill the device up to half the volume. Use gives the drink a light pleasant aftertaste, a slightly audible aroma.

How to improve the taste of moonshine with a dephlegmator:

• raisin gives the drink the aroma of grapes, you can add light notes of cinnamon by putting a piece of stick in the steamer;
• cherry leaves enrich alcohol with a tart taste of berries;
• multi-aroma is awarded to alcohol pieces of various dried fruits;
• apple peel gives the drink the smell of Calvados;
• citrus peels with a sprig of mint or lemon balm make the drink refreshing;
• tiles 75% black chocolate with addition oak bark or chips imitates taste;
• pair of stars star anise gives an anise flavor.

Additives to moonshine for taste

You can experiment with how to fill moonshine by adding to the container spices and herbs in various proportions:

• mint, rosemary, sage, wormwood in a ratio of 3:1:1:0.5;
• for 5 liters of strong drink, add 6 leaves of laurel, 10 pieces of black pepper and cloves spices, 2 tables each. spoons of granulated sugar and large-leaf black tea, half a vanilla pod, zest from half a medium orange. The mixture is infused for 10 days and filtered. It turns out an analogue of cognac.

When choosing bonifiers, you should determine the goal for moonshine:

1. Improve the taste of a drink for home consumption.
2. Do .
3. Prepare sweet.
4. Imitate famous brands.

Be very careful when using recipes in which wormwood flowers and leaves are added to improve the taste of alcohol:

• wormwood in large quantities causes hallucinations, poisoning;
• gives an extremely bitter taste, unpleasant for human perception;
• is not excreted, but accumulates in the body.

What to fill for color?

Giving a beautiful color to an alcoholic drink is one of the conditions for making delicious alcohol. Many plants or their parts (seeds, fruits, roots, bark, leaves) give the liquid a certain color and smell.

What to add to moonshine for taste and color:

• hibiscus tea" gives a pinkish color and a pleasant flavor with a slight sourness;
• natural saffron enriches the drink with a floral aroma and bright yellow color. The tincture should not be stored in sunlight, as the color of the product discolors under the influence of ultraviolet light;
• a berry bouquet with a pink color is obtained by infusion raspberries, blueberries, blueberries;
• blueness, associated with the smell of meadow herbs, is obtained after infusion cornflower petals;
• yellow - salad color with a refreshing taste is obtained after insisting alcohol on lemon peel;
• greenish color scheme with a pleasant taste tarragon leaves.

To make the drink tasty and transparent, it is recommended to add sugar before coloring.

Cook cool moonshine at home according to the strength of everyone. But beginners should remember the basic alcoholic drink to get a drinkable product.

To get a delicious alcoholic drink at home, it is not enough just through the device. Necessary get rid of the smell of fusel impurities, ennoble the drink with a new taste and aroma, make it softer, pleasant to drink. Many different recipes have been invented on how to soften moonshine at home, give it a new taste, completely change the smell and color.

A quality drink is produced only from good products that have not expired. Water is recommended to be used spring or bottled. If tap water is used, it is recommended to stand it for at least a day so that chlorine and the unpleasant smell of metal pipes disappear.

Effective softening of moonshine requires preliminary purification from impurities, fusel oils and acids. It is advisable to carry out the event even at the stage of distillation of the drink from the mash, using the product.

To this end, it is worth the factory production, equipped with the necessary devices.

The finished product is also subject to purification, while fortress the original drink should be not less than 50°:

• for a 3 liter container of alcohol, add 30 tablets of activated carbon from birch, ground to a powder. After three days of infusion, it is recommended to strain the liquid through a cotton pad;
• the addition of fresh chicken egg protein to 1 liter of moonshine helps to free the drink from fusel oils, the droplets of which are absorbed by the surface of the protein flakes. The yolk should be carefully separated, and the whites should be beaten with a mixer with a small amount of warm water. After a day, the drink must be filtered in small portions to free it from egg flakes;
• 100 ml of fresh milk is added to 1 liter of homemade alcohol and mixed thoroughly. Coagulated lumps and flakes cleanse the alcohol of fatty acids.

How and how to soften an alcoholic drink?

There are several ways to make moonshine softer:

1. Insist on vegetable raw materials, changing the aroma and taste inherent in the drink.
2. Add to moonshine sweetness(honey, sugar, fructose, glycerin, glucose, jam).
3. Use flavors artificial or homemade.

Infusion

A good softening effect is obtained from the use of products that change the taste characteristics of alcohol:

• half a citrus scalded with boiling water is cut into rings 5 ​​mm thick. They are dipped in granulated sugar on both sides and put in moonshine. The product is infused for at least a week in the dark at room temperature. The drink acquires a lemon aroma, yellowish color, mild taste;
• changing the taste of moonshine with sugar: a heaping tablespoon of granulated sugar must be heated over a fire until a light brown color and a pleasant caramel aroma are obtained. Dissolve the product in 1 liter of alcohol;
• put 100 g of smoked prunes on a three-liter jar of alcohol. The liquid turns cognac in color, and soft moonshine acquires fragrant "smoky" notes;
• add a quarter of nutmeg to 3 liters of moonshine. Insist 3 weeks. The spice is ideal for softening alcoholic beverages, if not increased in quantity. Otherwise, the liquid will acquire a bitter aftertaste;
• partitions from 15 walnuts are infused in a liter of alcohol for at least 15 days. The liquid noticeably softens, acquires a pleasant aroma and color;
• infusion on oak bark or roasted wood chips reveals its taste after a month. For each liter of alcohol, it is enough to put a tablespoon of crushed raw materials.

Adding sweetness

Softening moonshine with sugar, glucose, or honey noticeably improves the taste of alcohol while reducing hangover headaches. It is important not to overdo it though. Too sweet aftertaste is not suitable for strong alcohol.

The monosaccharide is produced by the pharmaceutical industry in the form of powder, tablets or solution ampoules.

How much glucose to add to moonshine depends on the concentration of the solution, the weight of the tablets and powder. For example, a 10% solution of a substance is added 200 ml per 6 liters of alcohol with a strength of at least 45 °.

And glucose powder is added in the ratio: 3 g per 1 liter of alcohol. You can improve the taste by adding a solution of ascorbic acid: 10 ml is calculated for 1 liter of homemade alcoholic drink.

When softening homemade alcohol, you should adhere to the proportions recommended by the recipe, tested by other moonshiners, so as not to spoil the alcoholic drink with excessive amounts.

To obtain a quality product, it is not enough just to overtake the mash. Softening moonshine will allow you to get a quality product without a specific smell and sharp taste.

The popularity of moonshine, as the most common alcoholic drink, is difficult to dispute. For its production, you need a distillation apparatus, the raw materials for manufacturing are always on the farm (one very famous literary character claimed that you can even drive moonshine from stools).

To get a pleasant drink, you need to free the resulting liquid from specific impurities and fusel oils that make the taste of alcohol sharp.

Flavor softening technology

Purification and softening of moonshine at home are quite simple and affordable processes, but they give a good result. The mild taste of an alcoholic beverage means the absence of sharp bitterness and a specific aftertaste.

There are several ways to make moonshine soft, for this you must follow the following rules:

• choose a proven mash recipe - if the feedstock is peas or potatoes, sugar beets - then the alcohol will be strong and its yield will be good, but additional purification or distillation will definitely be needed;
• it is desirable to have a good distillation apparatus equipped with additional cleaning devices - settling tanks that catch fusel oils already in the process of distillation;
• properly clean the resulting product,

Although many home machines are not perfect, proper cleaning and subsequent flavoring can achieve a very good quality of the original drink.

Removing fusel oils from the resulting moonshine is important not only for its quality - many of these compounds are harmful to health.

The following methods are used for purification:

• secondary distillation - the method can be used as the main one or combined with several purification methods;
• activated carbon filtration through a ready-made or home-made filter
• It works best if the tablets are placed in a vessel with a drink and insisted for several days, during this period you can change the coal;
• baking soda followed by distillation. This method uses the ability of soda to neutralize some acids. After adding a small amount of the product to the vessel, a precipitate will form in the container, which must be removed;
• mixing moonshine with egg white and milk, followed by sediment removal. Milk mixed with moonshine curdles and absorbs fusel oils. When filtering through a dense cloth, clots are removed from the drink along with fusel oils;
• cleaning with potassium permanganate - up to two grams of manganese is used per liter of drink, the mixture is left overnight. After a precipitate has formed, it is filtered off.

Purified and redistilled moonshine can be used to flavor and make a pleasant, easy-drinking drink.

How to soften moonshine

After cleaning, additives must be applied to improve the taste of the drink.

They change it, removing the bitterness of honey and sugar, monosaccharides, glycerin. The use of flavoring agents will help replace the sharp specific smell of alcohol with a pleasant smell of herbs or citrus fruits.

To get a good drink, you should be patient - sometimes it takes quite a long time to completely replace the smell of alcohol.

The quality of aromatization directly depends on the quality of cleaning - the sharp taste of fusel oils cannot be interrupted by any flavoring composition. It is equally important, when ennobling moonshine, to adhere to a recipe that is guaranteed to give a good result.

When using new, unfamiliar or questionable recipes, it is best to

conduct experiments on small volumes of alcohol.

You can correct the taste of moonshine by using a ready-made concentrate, which is used in industries for the preparation of alcoholic beverages.

To soften and flavor the drink, it is necessary to reduce the alcohol content to 50%. It is this content that is most effective for extracting taste-affecting compounds from the solution.

If it is necessary to re-distill the liquid after cleaning, it is adjusted to a strength of 25-30%.

All means to soften the taste of alcohol are divided into two groups:

• sweeteners;
• imparting a sour taste.

The first group includes glucose, fructose, honey, sugar, the second - ascorbic and citric acid.

Regardless of the type of softener, the technology remains the same. In order to soften the taste of moonshine, you must:

1. Dilute moonshine to the required strength plus 2%.
2. Grain or sugar distillate should be infused on activated charcoal for up to 5 days. Coal adsorbs the most massive molecules of fusel impurities, under the action of air the process of oxidation of aldehydes will pass, the taste of the drink will become less sharp. It is impossible to purify the distillate from fruits and berries - the unique aroma will disappear.
3. Pour a glass of drink into a separate bowl, gradually add softener. After adding all the necessary mass of the additive, taste the moonshine and fix the number of components.
4. After reaching the desired taste, it is necessary to calculate the required amount of additive for the volume of moonshine and mix.
5. After separating the right amount of softener, it is introduced into the container with the drink gradually, tasting the drink. This is especially important when using sweeteners (sugar and honey) as their composition varies from batch to batch.
6. In case of an overdose of the additive, you can add a little purified distillate or alcohol diluted with water. In the most unfortunate case - re-overtake.
7. Close the vessel tightly and take it to a dark, cold room with a temperature not exceeding 5 degrees Celsius and full manifestation of taste.
8. When a "milky effect" appears, it is necessary to withstand the drink for several days - if the effect does not disappear, the precipitate should be filtered through a filter made of cotton wool and dense fabric.

Sugar

The easiest and most affordable way to soften the taste of alcohol is to sweeten it. Keep in mind that poor quality sugar can make the drink cloudy and the smell of moonshine can become more unpleasant. The best result will ensure the use of lump sugar or refined sugar. Before adding an additive to moonshine, the pieces should be ground into powder with a coffee grinder. To improve the taste of a standard 40% strength distillate, use the proportion: 1 tablespoon of sugar without a slide per liter.

Glucose

To soften the taste of alcohol in the industrial production of vodka, glucose is widely used. It is sold over-the-counter in pharmacies and specialty food stores as glucose (dextrose) in the form of tablet powder or an aqueous solution. To improve the taste of standard diluted 40% moonshine, the optimal amount of glucose is up to 5 grams of powder (dextrose) per liter or 25 ml of a 40% solution from ampoules or flasks. If moonshine is softened with glucose using tablets, they must be crushed to a powder.

Fructose

Fruit sugar is twice as sweet as regular sugar. Available as a powder, best suited for fruit distillates. To soften the taste of ordinary moonshine, the following proportion is used - ½ tablespoon of sugar per liter of drink.

Honey

Fresh honey - liquid or melted in a water bath can not only soften the taste, but also give a characteristic honey aroma. The usual rate is ½ tablespoon per liter of drink (40%). After adding, a characteristic reaction may occur - turbidity of moonshine, stormy foam. Before adding honey, you can dissolve it well in a small amount of the poured drink.

Glycerol

Food additive E422 or food glycerin is a clear syrup-like liquid. The substance got its name for its sweet taste. It is quite difficult to calculate the required amount of a substance - at the slightest excess of the necessary, a sugary taste appears. For softening, you need to use no more than 5 ml. glycerin per liter of moonshine of ordinary strength.

Zest

A great way to improve the taste of an alcoholic drink is to add lemon or orange zest, lime peel or tangerine. The zest can be fresh or dried.

To cut a fresh zest you need:

• wash the fruit thoroughly;
• wipe the skin with a clean cloth or towel;
• carefully cut off the upper colored part of the peel with a sharp knife, trying not to touch the white bitter base;

The usual proportion is the skin of three medium or two large fruits per three liters of moonshine. With a smaller amount, the smell will be almost imperceptible, with a larger amount, the citrus flavor will be unnatural. The infusion period of the drink is 14 days, during which time the fruit skins absorb fusel oils.

Nutmeg

A pleasant burning and delicate aftertaste of moonshine is given by the use of nutmeg. The spice is commonly used to prepare meat and fish dishes, and is usually present in every kitchen. Some claim that the use of nutmeg gives moonshine a pleasant aftertaste of tea.

For flavoring, you can use both ground nut powder and whole nuts. Usually, a pinch of nutmeg powder is added per liter of liquid. The aging period of the drink is at least 21 days.

Black pepper

Softening moonshine with black pepper is a little unusual, spicy peas will eliminate the taste and pungent smell of moonshine, but will give it a burning taste. The proportion is 5 medium peppercorns per liter of standard diluted distillate. You can combine several spices in one drink by adding citrus zest and nutmeg, cloves to peas

Burnt sugar

Coloring drinks or creams with burnt sugar is an old culinary technique. They can be used to soften the taste of moonshine.

The method is suitable only for refined alcohol - the taste of burnt sugar is not able to completely eliminate the taste of fusel oils.

To make caramel, you can use ready-made granulated sugar or refined sugar ground into crumbs. To make caramel you need:

• Take a clean, dry, heavy-bottomed skillet.
• Pour the required number of tablespoons of sugar on it, plus one to maintain the proportion.
• Moisten with a little water.
• Melt sugar over heat, stirring constantly, until brown.

Add zhzhenka to moonshine at the rate of 1 teaspoon per liter of standard distillate. To complete the aromatization process, you need to infuse the drink for up to 14 days. To balance the taste, you can add a little ascorbic acid in powder to the drink.

Pine nuts

The use of pine nuts to achieve a mild taste of moonshine allows you to get not only a pleasant taste, but also a healing drink. There are two ways to add nuts to moonshine - with skins or peeled, this forms different tastes of the original drink.

The shell has the properties of an adsorbent and absorbs fusel oils, further purifying the drink.

Before adding shelled nuts to the drink, they need to be soaked in hot water for a short time, which will clean the surface of resins and dirt. Nuts are brought into moonshine at the rate of 60 g per liter of moonshine.

Purified, they give the drink their oils, binding harmful impurities and giving a unique taste.

Walnut

Moonshine infused with partitions of walnuts is not only a pleasant drink, but also a healing medicine that helps patients with thyroid diseases well. Walnut partitions should be taken in the amount of 25 pieces per liter of alcohol. The softening of the taste of the drink occurs within a month.

oak bark

Infusion of alcoholic beverages in oak barrels is a tradition. The storage and infusion of elite spirits is carried out only in oak barrels. For home cleansing, you must use oak bark from a pharmacy or wood chips. Previously, the pharmacy bark must be scalded with boiling water, after 15-20 minutes, drain the infusion and rinse the bark. Oak chips (chips) should be used according to the manufacturer's instructions or after steaming with hot water.

The effect of such insistence is shown after long insistence. The shortest period is three weeks. After the drink gets the desired taste and color, the bark must be removed and the drink filtered.

Remember - cognac is nothing more than grape moonshine, aged for a very long time in oak barrels.

Citrus

To get a pleasant moonshine, you can use fresh citrus fruits - lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits.

To flavor and soften with lemon, the fruit must be washed well, cut into thin slices and transferred to a container with a drink. An excellent proportion is one medium fruit per liter of purified distillate. It takes at least a week to insist in a dark, cool place to get not only a pleasant taste of the drink, but also a beautiful color.

Making good alcohol is an art. Only a master will be able to combine the components to obtain an original drink, not for drinking an accursed one - but for joy!

Attention, only TODAY!

After filtering and pour into containers. Sometimes flavoring additives for moonshine are added according to the recipe.

To, it is flavored with natural ingredients. Most often, hops are used to eliminate fusel oils. Similarly affects alcohol and bee honey. Berries, fruits, herbs and spices are also often used.

Originally, these additives were either sweeteners or
medicinal herbs that served to mask the fusel flavor. However, the complex composition of the recipes implied an important role for the aroma of the drink.

Can . It is done like this. Bring one liter of water to a boil. Add a kilo of sugar and boil. It is required to remove the foam all the time until it runs out. Turn off the syrup and let it cool. Do not touch for 14 days until a thin precipitate appears.

You can use honey instead of syrup. At the stage of mixing moonshine with syrup, the liquid heats up and releases gas. You should wait until the gas evolution ends. Then crush 6 tablets of activated charcoal, add to the mixture and shake.

After two hours, strain the alcohol and pour into bottles. Place them in the refrigerator for a couple of days. These manipulations will soften and get rid of the smell of alcohol.

How aromatization occurs

Aromatization does not occur through secondary distillation, but through infusion and extraction. Cold connection is considered the most economical method. In this case, the extracts of aromatic components are simply poured into moonshine and a bottle of drink is placed in the cellar. But for the result to be especially good, moonshine should keep for a long time at room temperature. In this case, the exposure period should be from two weeks to four months. The waiting time will depend on the recipe and ingredients. More complex recipes require ingredients to be added at specific times.

If the holding temperature is 50-60°C, the infusion time is reduced to seven days.

How to prepare a solution

Solutions, extracts and decoctions are obtained by hot or cold soaking. As a rule, they are concentrated, have quite specific aromas and a characteristic aftertaste. Before soaking herbs for flavoring, they are pre-cut and filled with a solvent. The latter should cover the raw material by two fingers. The ratio of plants and solvent is usually measured within 1 to 2 or 1 to 5. Dry herbs are soaked for 8-15 days, fresh? 3-5 days.

Distillation of decoctions (or, in other words, distillation) makes it possible to obtain more concentrated solutions and flavors, with a high alcohol content and high saturation with aromatic substances. Such flavored solutions are called essences. To get them, the raw material is passed through a distillation system.

What plant parts are used in recipes

Parts of plants that are used in various recipes to flavor homemade alcohol:

Note! Flavoring affects not only the smell, but also the final quality of the drink. For example, if you add citrus zest, bay leaf or vanilla to alcohol, it will take on a bitter taste. Ginger, cloves and black pepper will endow the elixir with a burning taste. If you want your alcohol to be spicy, use cardamom or nutmeg. Rosemary, saffron, star anise and cinnamon are characterized by a bitter-spicy aftertaste.

How to properly prepare raw materials

To ennoble the liqueur, the plants are best dried and harvested in advance. Most of the useful components in plants that are in the flowering stage at the time of collection.

The maximum of active components in fruits during the period of full ripening. Umbrella grass seeds should be collected in wet weather early in the morning before dew drop.

Juicy fruits should be collected in the morning before the start of the heat or in the evening. In early spring, it is better to collect buds that have not yet opened. Small birch buds need to be cut with shoots.

During the period of sap flow in the spring, you need to harvest oak bark. Remove smooth bark from young trees. The bark is stored for up to five years.

How to dry properly

Follow the rules:

Process roots in thermal dryers. They need to be crushed first. At first, drying should take place at a temperature of 35-40 0 C, at the end? 50-60 0 С.

The leaves dry unevenly, so they need to be dried until the petioles become brittle.

The bark must be subjected to heat drying. Make sure that the pieces do not nest into each other, otherwise it will rot.

The kidneys dry out in a cool room for a long period of time.

Herbal Ingredients as Flavors: Recipes

Wormwood moonshine

You will need:

• flowers and leaves of field wormwood;
• moonshine.

How to cook?

1. Dry the leaves and flowers of wormwood in the shade.
2. Immerse dry wormwood in moonshine. It should take up 25% of the dishes.
3. Insist 7 ? 14 days.

homemade cognac

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon of sugar;
• 1 tablespoon of tea;
• 3 liter moonshine;
• 3 bay leaves;
• 5 pieces of black peppercorns;
• 3-5 pieces of cloves;
• citrus peels.

How to cook?

Mix all ingredients. Insist 10 days.

Cherry tincture

You will need:

• cherry fruits;
• moonshine.

How to cook?

1. Fill the container 75% with ripe fruits. First, remove the pits from half of these cherries.
2. Pour in vodka and place in the cellar for six weeks.
3. Drain the vodka, squeeze the cherries through gauze.
4. After 24 hours, mix cherry juice for flavoring with vodka and bottle.
5. Capacities tightly seal, and let it brew for a year.

Robin

You will need:

• moonshine;
• raspberries;
• granulated sugar;
• water.

How to cook?

1. Fill bottle 75% with raspberries.
2. Pour raspberries with moonshine and put in the shade for two days.
3. Drain the liqueur, discard the raspberries.
4. Fill the bottle with 50% fresh berries and pour in the same moonshine.
5. Drain and strain.
6. Dilute sugar syrup and add to drink to taste.

Nut liqueur

You will need:

How to cook?

1. Chop the green nuts along with the shell.
2. For flavoring, pour into a glass container.
3. Pour moonshine and leave for a month. During this time, the liquid will acquire a brown tint.
4. After a month, drain the liquid, pour sugar into a container with nuts and leave for another two weeks.
5. Pour the sugar syrup into the bowl with the infusion that was drained earlier.
6. Stir and leave to lighten for 7 days.
7. Pour the pour into bottles.

Color moonshine

To give the drink a non-standard color and aroma will help natural Components.

• Moonshine will turn yellow when interacting with saffron.
• Violet, - if you insist on sunflower seeds.
• Red? on blueberries.
• Green? on mint.
• Blue? on cornflowers.

Caraway moonshine

You will need:

• 400 g cumin;
• 1 liter of water;
• sugar;
• moonshine.

How to cook?

1. Distill the cumin water through the distillation equipment.
2. Store caraway water in the refrigerator or cellar for several months.
3. So that, immediately before use, add sugar to the water and pour it into alcohol to taste.

Interesting to know! To improve the taste of the drink, it is best to infuse it in a barrel. You can use both professional barrels and ordinary cooperage products.

Aromatization rules

If in the same moonshine periodically change

fresh, you get a concentrate. They can then improve the aroma and taste of alcohol.

Best in glass containers. If you need to quickly saturate alcohol with a special taste and aroma, the easiest way is to put the bottles in a pot filled with water on wooden planks. Boiling time is one hour. Then you need to cool in cool water.

You can add flavoring to the sourdough. Use citrus zest or herbs here. In this case, the aroma will be barely noticeable. To strengthen it, you first need to infuse the water on the flavor, which is used to make the mash, and then dilute the sourdough in this water.

Fragrant moonshine? it is a whole art. Many in their entire lives cannot comprehend this science. But on the way to perfection, you can create and taste a lot of fragrant masterpieces.